Well!
Yesterday I participated in my very first fitness competition. It’s true, I tumbled in some gymnastics meets until age 8 or 9. And the summer after fifth grade, the Brown Bros. Construction Company softball team went undefeated…until I went on vacation (buffs nails on shirt). I did my share of bump-set-spike on Cove Creek School’s seventh and eighth grade volleyball team. (Hahahaha! I did not spike anything! I’ve been a midget my whole life!) Summers, I sailed Lasers in some races.
But I’d never in my adult life competed in a physical pursuit. Against other adults, I should say. (For the last five years, I’ve been whooping some fourth-grade ass at the tetherball pole.)
So yesterday. Yesterday I participated in the Valentine’s Day Couples Throwdown at CrossFit Durham. You didn’t have to be paramours to participate, just mixed-sex pairs, so I sought out a partner. Paul, you remember Paul, already had a partner, but since he does six to eight times as much exercise as the rest of us, he decided he would take me on too and do each WOD in two different heats.
Big Love CFD was formed. My sister-wife Kristen, Paul, and I psyched each other up for the big shindig all week. As the event drew closer, I found myself developing quite the case of nerves. Fortunately, I received this email from Paul on Friday night:
By now you know how competitive I am. That being said, tomorrow is all about having fun! What’s “fun” you ask? Talking shit about our fellow CFers, cheering for the underdogs, and sweating up a storm. If we can accomplish this, the smackdown will be a success!
Whew. I could do all those things. I am an accomplished shit-talker, underdog-cheerer, and sweater.
I arrived and donned the heart-themed knee socks my sister-wife had brought for all of us. Kristen’s love is fickle, however, and when a hot guy showed up without a partner, she abandoned us without a backward glance. Paul and I were on our own.
The Throwdown consisted of two WODs. We all took a knee as Coach Dave explained the first one:
Partner 1: Eat 15 Hershey’s Kisses
Partner 2: Row 1000m
Both: 20 sit-ups (facing each other, touching hands in the middle)
Partner 1: Row 800m
Both: 20 sit-ups
Partner 2: Row 600m
Both: 20 sit-ups
Partner 1: Row 400m
Both: 20 sit-ups
Partner 2: Row 200m
Both: 20 sit-ups
Partner 2: Eat 10 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Paul and I began to strategize. He said he despised peanut butter cups, and I don’t love them either, but the way the WOD was organized meant that Partner 2 (the peanut butter-cup eater) was going to row 600 meters more than Partner 1. We both knew that Paul was going to need to take one for the team and gag down those cups.
We were in the third heat, so we watched the other competitors. Paul kept pointing out what terrible form most of them had—Paul does not mince words—so I asked for coaching, and he gave it to me. The instructions were simple and straight-forward, and I knew I could do it.
The third heat began, and I ate the shit out of those Hershey’s Kisses. I finished way ahead of the other Partner 1s (all that binge-eating ages 17-30 finally paid off!), and Paul hopped onto the rowing machine. He is a speedy demon, that Paul. We ripped out our first set of sit-ups. Time for my first row. Paul was a GREAT coach, and it was hard, but I felt good. The next set of sit-ups was tough. Doing sit-ups while out of breath is way harder than doing them fresh. By the fourth set of sit-ups, I was grunting with each one and slowing us down. By the fifth, I was moaning. Whatever. We finished them.
Now, Paul could’ve done the rowing and the sit-ups thrice without a problem, but it’s a good thing Kristen flouted our covenant and he didn’t have to do the WOD again because eating those Reese’s cups nearly broke the man. That being said, he choked them down, and we finished sixth out of eighteen couples. What?! Sixth! Amazing.
The second WOD was a 10-minute AMRAP (as many reps as possible):
10 burpees
25m walking lunges
(turn around)
10 burpees
25m walking lunges
The kicker: it was a three-legged race. We had to do the burpees AND the walking lunges tethered together at the knee.
Let me be clear. I hate burpees like I hate racism. And to do them while tied to someone, particularly someone who is fit, oh mah gah!
We were in the second heat. During the first, I did my best to keep pace with Paul’s heckling of our opponents, but he’s got mad skillz, yo.
That was nothing compared to the WOD. We developed a burpee strategy: outside leg back, inside leg back, push-up, inside leg forward, outside leg forward, stand up. The band was cutting off the circulation in my leg, and we tried to move it to our ankles, but that threw off what little balance we had, so we moved it back up. During the last two sets of lunges, I had to tell Paul to stop several times, which he graciously did but got me back in the game almost immediately by saying, “OK, three, two, one.” And off we’d go. It suuuuuuuuuuuucked.
We completed three full sets plus ten more burpees, and placed seventh in the event.
Everybody shuffled inside, and when the points were tallied, Paul and I had come in seventh overall.
So hard.
So fun.
Watch out for us next year.
P.S. Here’s Paul’s version of the event.